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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22893664">Becoming Jaskier</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/merthurlocked/pseuds/merthurlocked'>merthurlocked</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Pankratz Boy [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Flowers, Fluff and Angst, also i need to give florentyna a shorter name, do we like floren or tyna or florence?, hmm, i am really loving the sibling love between jask and Florentyna, or would jaskier call her his flora?, poor baby boy just needs a hug, unloved family member</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 11:41:03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,959</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22893664</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/merthurlocked/pseuds/merthurlocked</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Julian Alfred Pankratz is 12 years old when he gives himself that nickname,</p><p>Jaskier,</p><p>and it sticks with him.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jaskier | Dandelion &amp;; Florentyna Pankratz, Julian Alfred Pankratz &amp;; Florentyna Pankratz</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Pankratz Boy [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1644877</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>104</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Becoming Jaskier</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Can be read with the rest of the series or as a stand alone.</p><p>I just wanted to write more on how Jaskier chose his name and why he does so.</p><p>Again un-beted so I apoligise for any and all mistakes.</p><p>Have fun, peace out &lt;3</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Julian Alfred Pankratz is 12 years old when he gives himself that nickname,</p><p> </p><p><em>Jaskier</em>,</p><p> </p><p>and it sticks with him.</p><p> </p><p>It will be a few more years yet until he introduces himself as Jaskier, and <em>only </em>Jaskier.</p><p>But for now, at 12 he holds on to this name and keeps it sheltered in his heart, protected and loved.</p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>He is five years old when his sister gives him the name Buttercup.</p><p>His sister will call him her sweet yellow buttercup and Jaskier will lap it up, look upon his sister in awe.</p><p>He loved receiving any affection that she would give him. Loved hearing the softness behind it, loved feeling the warmth from it. She would say his nickname, not in harsh abrupt tones, like that of his parents when they utter his name, <em>Julian,</em> at him, like its something diseased and wrong-tasting in their mouth.</p><p>But it is said in light soft tones, with reverence and sometimes it will be accompanied by a huff of sweet-sounding laughter, and it is <em>this</em> that makes Jaskier like it.</p><p>His brothers would snigger behind their backs and Herman would say “More like a dandelion to me, limp and unwanted just like the weed”, and Jaskier would be confused because he likes dandelions and buttercups.</p><p>Loves how bright and sunny they are, loves the green stems poking through the earth and loves to see the yellow flower burst out and spread. He likes to see the flowers grow and surround themselves with each other, there is always a patch of them together, not just one by itself. He likes to pick them up and gather them and lift them to his nose to breathe in their sweet earthy scent. But one day he learns that most people do not actually like them. Do not actually see them as a flower. Instead they see them as a nuisance in their garden, a nuisance to pluck, and to pull and to <em>weed out.</em></p><p> </p><p>One day he will gather a bundle together and carefully tie a loose pale-yellow ribbon (stolen from Florentyna’s room) around them and he will walk the short distance back to his home with the flowers clutched securely behind his back. He will stumble up the many stone steps his large home has and enter through the steel lined doors to go find his mother.</p><p>His house is cold and dark and empty, too big even for their family of six. It used to give Jaskier nightmares when he was very little, dreaming of being in one of the many unused rooms, locked inside, cold and shivering, and no matter how many times he tries to run towards the door, the distance between him and his escape always seems to grow.</p><p>
  <em>Never ending.</em>
</p><p>And his voice will scream out for help, for anyone to come let him out, but his voice will not carry across the room, it is <em>too little</em>, <em>too weak</em>, it is almost<em> non-existent. </em>And he will wake up, screams stuck in his chest, sat bolt upright and he will feel the coldness seep into his bones, and he knows that he will get no more sleep that night.</p><p>He knows he will get no offers of comfort or warm soothing words whispered in his ears from his mother. He knows that his fathers’ hands will not tuck him safely back into bed, and that they won’t delicately run through his warm honey-brown coloured curls. No older brother will smile at him softly and tell him quite fiercely that “Don’t you worry little brother, I shall watch over you while you sleep, I shall keep the nightmares away”. No one will be there to offer him the slightest bit of comfort. So, instead, he will hum himself back to sleep, softly whisper the words from lullabies he’d read in a book. He will pray that this is enough to keep the nightmares away.</p><p>He will walk towards his mother, who is sat in her daughters’ room, carefully pinning back Florentyna’s hair, gently running her hands through the loose knots at the end. He will watch her talk quietly to her daughter, speaking about how her own hair used to be very much like hers, how her own hair used to gracefully tumble down her back and shine in the sun.</p><p>And Florentyna will half listen, head looking towards the big framed window in her room. Watching the little birds fly and swoop low, landing on branches and teetering near the edge before lifting back up again and flying out of her view. She will watch them jealously and wish that she were allowed the same freedom. She will hear the same story uttered again and again from her mother, and she will let her brush, and tame and pin back her hair the way her mother likes, all the while wishing for the day, she can do it herself. Can make herself someone that isn’t a copy of her mother.</p><p>And Jaskier, will watch on, seeing this open affection, seeing how his mother does love and does so openly for her one and only daughter. And he has never quite understood why he has not received the same affections, but he does not let this bother him. He is young and he stills thinks that his mother will one day look down at him with the same love and adoration on her face that she so graciously offers to Florentyna.</p><p>He will step forwards into the room and clear his throat before speaking “Mother, I have a present I should like to offer you” and his words are well thought out, and carefully chosen, because he knows Father does not like him to sound like a baby, does not like it when he sometimes mispronounces words or gets his syllables mixed up. Knows that his mother might tell father that he has messed up and still not learned how to talk properly, so he had practiced what he would say on his walk to the room.</p><p>Florentyna will move from her trance, mover her head away from the window and a small smile will curl up the edges of her mouth as she turns to look at her baby bird brother. Their mother will hiss out “Florentyna! Don’t you move, I am not done pinning your hair back”.</p><p>Florentyna’s smile will drop and she will turn back to face the window, but her voice is soft when she asks Jaskier to come inside. His mother will turn ever so slightly to look at him, before dismissing him with her eyes and go back to concentrating on her daughter’s perfect raven coloured hair. Jaskier will wait patiently by the window, hands clasped behind his back, clutching the green and yellow flowers, and wait until his mother allows him to talk like he has been taught to do so.</p><p>She is finished moments later, slowly looking at her masterpiece, gently moving Florentyna’s head to look at every angle of her hair, making sure not a single piece is out of place. Then she will drop her hands and say, “There we are darling, it’s much better now, just how mine used to look when I was your age” and she will start to walk out the room before Florentyna catches her arm,</p><p>“Thank you, Mother, but Julian said he has a gift for you?”, and she will watch her mother sigh before turning towards Jaskier and stand there waiting for him to give it her.</p><p>Jaskier will step forward and smile briefly at his sister before his gaze lands solely on his mother. His bright blue eyes transfixed on her. And he will pull his hands from around his back and bring them forward, offering up the bundle of dandelions and buttercups.</p><p>“Mother, I picked these, just for you. They are my favourite flowers and I wanted you to have them”, his hand is outstretched, waiting for his mother to take them and bring them towards her face and breathe them in, but instead, her face shuts down, and she glowers at her youngest son and tuts.</p><p>“Oh, for Melitele’s sake Julian, those are <em>not</em> flowers! Those are weeds, and you should know better by now. Put them outside and don’t bring them into the house again!” and with that his mother storms off and leaves the two siblings alone.</p><p>Jaskier will look down at his flowers, at his offering of love and his lip will tremble and his wide, baleful eyes will start to fill, because he doesn’t understand why his mother didn’t like them. He doesn’t understand what is so bad about a weed, and why a weed is not a flower.</p><p>His sister will sigh and move off her chair to kneel in front of Jaskier, she will reach for the flowers and ask to have them “I think they are a wonderful gift, and look you have picked buttercups, my favourite nickname for you” and Jaskier will look up at his sister and he will feel a little warmth rush in, to the fill the gaps of cold his mother left, and Florentyna will say “Is it okay if I have them instead? They will go lovely in my room” and Jaskier will nod his head, yes, and let her take the flowers from his small hands, and she will place them in a small vase on her windowsill, pointing it towards the sun and Jaskier will smile bigger and brighter now, because someone else loves his favourite flowers too. </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>So yes, Julian is 12 years old when he decides to call himself Jaskier instead.</p><p>He does not care that it means Buttercup or Dandelion, he does not care that people think the plant a weed. He does not care that a Buttercup is a weed and not a flower. Because he has grown to love weeds.</p><p>He has watched them be plucked and pulled up. Watched their roots be unearthed and yanked and ripped up. He has watched as people trample on them when they walk, not minding their step as they follow a warn-in trail through the grassy meadows where he lives.</p><p>He notices that these flowers, these <em>weeds</em> are strong, and resilient.</p><p>That no matter what, they keep growing back.</p><p>They sometimes disappear during winter, sometimes, their Gardner is efficient in removing the weeds from their land, and sometimes Jaskier will be sad as he cannot see his beloved weeds outside anymore. But spring will arrive and with it he will notice the small sprouting of a green plant, he will notice the beginnings of his favourite flower growing back. Dandelions and Buttercups will line the warn-in paths again, they will fill the outskirts of his mother’s flower beds, they will appear in the gaps between the roses and the lilies and the carnations.</p><p>They will stand tall and proud and defiant, like they know that no matter how hard someone might try to ruin them, to remove them, to cut them out of their lives, they <em>know,</em> that they will grow back.</p><p>Jaskier will witness this, and he will feel a connection to this.</p><p> </p><p>For he knows what it’s like to be tossed aside, to be unloved and unwanted.</p><p> </p><p>And he knows all this, but he also knows that he is <em>strong</em>, and <em>determined</em> and full of <em>life</em> and full of <em>love</em>.</p><p>And he will continue to offer up his heart, that is so full of love, until he finds the people that appreciate the tiny weed like flowers, appreciate what they are and what they stand for.</p><p> </p><p>Until he finds the people who see not a weed but a <em>flower,</em> a beautiful sunny, golden light filled flower,</p><p> </p><p>a flower they want to keep.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hope you are enjoying these so far,</p><p>This might become chaptered once I start writing the next stage of this. I quite like the idea of going through the years of his life, and have a few ideas already for introducing Geralt and getting to those gritty scenes. I will of course have to mention the 'breakup' on the mountain, so there is more angst to come yet.</p><p>Anyway, love and hugs to you readers, kudos and comments are much apreciated :)<br/>And any writing tips you may have, just let me know!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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